Self-Published Sunday: Bad Breath Comics #5

Sometimes it is difficult to hate something. You are prepared to write it off as a bad experience, but there is one little thing that keeps nagging at the back of your mind. something that stood out as good in an otherwise forgettable piece. Maybe it was an actor in a movie, a photo in a magazine, or a line in a book. In the case of Bad Breath Comics #5 it was a single page.

Bad Breath is an anthology series by Josh Juresko. The short stories within are often mundane and pointless. Every time you think there is going to be some interesting turn of events or a strange plot twist, the story ends and you are left with the realization that there really wasn’t anything more to the story.

Except for the one time that there was.

There is a single-page story buried between “A Favor to Ask” and “Dumbfuck McDuffy” which stands out as being something special. In it, a naked woman stands facing away from the viewer. Before her is nothing but an empty white void. In the next panel she is vibrating and glowing with power as a barrage of patterns and geometric shapes explodes from the emptiness. In the next panel it is once again a blank void, except for a small, smoldering hole which has been punched through. In the final panel, the woman turns back to viewer, looking over her shoulder and asks, “Did I do the right?” It is such a fantastically surreal piece, such a Moebius moment, that it stops the reader in their tracks.

Unfortunately, that is the only such moment in the book. Everything else is pretty forgettable. Hopefully the one-page strip is not a fluke and Juresko will look to that as the goal for future strips.

If you are interested in checking it out, you can pick up your own copy of Bad Breath Comics #5, as well as several back issues, directly from Josh.